Dented Reality

Author Archives: Beau Lebens

I am Beau.

First Siren Net Checkin

February 7, 2012 – 12:48 pm

In October 2010, as part of my NERT training, I attended a “HAM Cram” class here in SF and gained my FCC HAM license. I picked up a Yaesu VX-7R radio and then tinkered around a bit, but never really got into HAM too much more than it just being a fun idea. Since then [...]

Posted in Personal, Techn(ical|ology) | Tagged emergency, ham, nert, radio, san francisco, yaesu |
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Camping on Angel Island

December 1, 2011 – 2:40 pm

Over the Thanksgiving break, some friends and I went camping over on Angel Island, in the San Francisco Bay. It’s quite a unique experience, camping in amongst so much city/so many people, yet being so isolated. We caught a ferry from SF over to Tiburon*, and then another from there to Angel Island. Once on [...]

Posted in Personal | Tagged angel island, camping, island, san francisco |
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Mounting Remote Filesystems in OSX

December 1, 2011 – 8:42 am

        Most of my work for Automattic is done on a remote sandbox machine, somewhere in Texas. I’ll often jump in and make smaller edits over SSH via vi, but when I’m doing something bigger I much prefer to work locally, using TextMate (I’m on a Mac, obviously). To do that, I need to be [...]

Posted in Techn(ical|ology) | Tagged automattic, development, fuse, macfuse, macfusion, sftp, ssh, transmit |
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On Internet Addiction and Connectivity Bubbles

November 10, 2011 – 12:23 pm

If there’s one thing that travel has done for me lately, it’s made me recognize and accept how addicted and reliant I am upon my smart phone (in my case, an iPhone). When you travel (internationally), you have to make a hard choice — do I shell out big $$$ to AT&T to get an [...]

Posted in Personal, Techn(ical|ology) | Tagged connectivity, internet, travel |
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Wakemate vs Fitbit: Sleep monitoring and the quantified self

November 9, 2011 – 10:12 pm

A while back, I got a Wakemate and was pretty gung-ho about it being a great device for monitoring your sleep and helping you feel a bit more refreshed when you wake up. I recently picked up a Fitbit as well, so as a bit of fun, I thought I’d compare the 2 devices for [...]

Posted in Personal, Reviews, Techn(ical|ology) | Tagged comparison, fitbit, quantified self, review, wakemate |
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Krav Maga Level 4 Test

October 18, 2011 – 6:13 pm

This past Saturday, I had a test that was long overdue — a test that I originally should have taken almost 2 years ago. I tested to go from Level 4 (Green Belt) to Level 5 (Blue Belt) in Krav Maga at my gym here in San Francisco. I have missed this test twice now [...]

Posted in Personal | Tagged fitbit, fitness, health, krav maga, test, training, withings |
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Announcing: SidewalkScribbl.es

July 12, 2011 – 12:55 pm

I’ve launched a new website that you might like to check out: SidewalkScribbl.es It feels like every time I walk around in San Francisco (and other places), I see all this cool artwork, quotes, stencils etc on the sidewalk that I’m sure a lot of people are missing or not appreciating. SidewalkScribbl.es will be a [...]

Posted in Personal, Projects | Tagged launch, scribbles, sidewalkscribbles, website |
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New Server @ DreamHost

May 11, 2011 – 12:58 pm

Apparently I’ve been moved to a new server at DreamHost. Let’s see if that solves any of the performance problems that I’ve been having. I still have an account at MediaTemple that I’m paying for, and haven’t gotten around to moving things over to just yet

Posted in Site News, Techn(ical|ology) | Tagged dreamhost, media temple, web hosting |
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Urban Escape & Evasion with onPoint Tactical

April 24, 2011 – 8:31 pm

A few weeks ago I attended a 3-day course titled “Scout Urban Escape & Evasion“, delivered by onPoint Tactical. The idea of it was to learn how to get around in a hostile  urban environment, assuming you were being pursued. That pursuit might be active or not, and might be post- or pre- apprehension of some sort [...]

Posted in Personal | Tagged escape, evasion, hand cuffs, lock picking, onpoint tactical, stress, surveillance, survivalist, tactical, urban |
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Tom Brown Jr’s Tracker School

April 16, 2011 – 3:51 pm

NOTE: This post has been sitting in draft for a long time, and I’m finally publishing it. I actually attended Tracker School in May 2010. About 9 years ago, I picked up the movie The Hunted from an ex-rental discount bin. I hadn’t heard of it, and didn’t know what to expect, but it had [...]

Posted in Personal | Tagged camouflage, camping, cooking, hunting, outdoors, primitive skills, survivalist, tanning |
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